A Detective's Nightmare and A Soldier's Lullaby
by Kairi Swallowdown
Summary: Night falls over Baker Street and with it the hoarse cries of a man tormented by his demons and the violin of another trying to soothe the pain. A reflection on Sherlock's view of John's nightmares and the realisation of love for the Doctor during one night after the pool. Johnlock oneshot with possibility of sequel if wanted. Please read and review and let me know.


A Detective's Nightmare and A Soldier's Lullaby

**AN: Well, this is it, my first attempt at writing within the Sherlock fandom. I've read for about two years and haven't had the guts to post. But I have decided that the time has come, so I present my first offering. **

**Disclaimer; I do not own anything related to Sherlock, except the complete works, all the films and all the TV series, yes even the Jeremy Brett one. I do not own these characters, that honour solely belongs to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffatt. If I did, the Johnlock would be more obvious than it already is. **

It starts as usual, at one am in the morning. A deep, pained and anguished sigh comes from his bedroom. I stand by the window of the sitting room, playing anything I can think of to soothe the doctor. Perhaps I will be lucky tonight and that the deep, sad sighs will be the only things that plague him.

Minutes pass and I relax, only to hear a low murmur, given in a commanding tone and I know that tonight, once again, his demons will return to haunt him.

I wearily run a hand through my hair in an action reminiscent of the soldier upstairs and pick up my bow in preparation for my almost nightly battle. Most nights the demons are tame and are easily beaten back with Mendelssohn and Mozart.

On nights such as this, when the stifling winds blow the scent of the desert into London, the demons are powerful and bloodthirsty. Instead of Mendelssohn and Mozart, I must resort to the never attempted, frantic and nearly impossible melodies of Beethoven and Chopin in order to subdue them. Subdue them yes, but never eradicate them completely.

I turn to the door facing the stairs, place my violin at my neck and raise my bow high for I am never the one that makes the first move. A low cry marks the beginning and that is my signal. I bring the bow down onto the strings, calm, soothing notes fill the hallway and the cries lessen immediately.

I smirk, it seems that they were not expecting my intervention so soon. A tactical error, because now _I_ have the advantage. I step through the door into the hallway, sweeping the bow across the strings with restrained energy, for I cannot play to my limit, not yet.

I hear the demons buzz and listen to their attempts to plan their next move. Before they can even implement it, I take action and lullaby changes into destruction. This riles them, for they have no wish to cease tormenting the man the floor above.

They fight me every step I take towards the stairs. I hear them twist my doctor in his sheets as they try and stop me from playing. It is an offer I have been tempted by many times before and is one I have always managed to refuse. In response, hard, authorative notes sound from my violin as I wonder at the insolence of these demons. Do they never learn? They cannot harm or possess anything that I consider to be mine. They. Have. No. Right.

* * *

I start to ascend the stairs, the violin changing its tune once more. I grin as the demons begin to panic, hearing my anger in the differing notes of Beethoven and Chopin. They know that tonight I am determined to carry out my threats. I will destroy them, or if for some absurd reason I cannot, I will drive them to a retreat so far back that they will never return.

They fall quiet once more when I reach the landing facing my doctor's door and I believe that tonight I have won, for I cannot, for once, hear their dark mutterings. I breathe a sigh of relief, my services were not needed to their full extent tonight, perhaps I misjudged the violence of the demons. For I had been deep in their wing of my mind palace when they first made their presence known in this twilight hour.

I stop playing, lower my bow and step towards the stairs weary with the exhaustion of playing such rhythms. As I turn though, I am punished for my lack of trust in myself.

A cry full of pain and sorrow sounds behind me as the demons unleash an onslaught on the man behind the door and the helpless tone of the sound sends a bolt of white fury through me. Only thrice have they ever declared war like this; the night of the pool and twice thereafter. It **never** fails to elicit a response.

Tiredness forgotten, I raise my bow once more, fury pumping through my veins, better than any drug. How could I have ever thought that emotion was weak? Not when it grants this power of perfect, almost liquid clarity. For the demons have unwittingly upped the stakes.

Today I realised what the doctor truly means to me, by battling the demons for him, his soul and his sanity I am only repaying a fraction of what he has done for me and I do not appreciate debt of any kind, he is my only exception. For this reason, this reason only, his demons will never win. They can torment the doctor and I as much as they wish but they will not succeed.

I place the bow on the strings and look directly at my doctor's door. If the demons are stupid enough to declare war like this again then they have forgotten the violence of my counter-attack, as always.

I shake with fury as I sweep the bow across the strings. How dare they, how dare they torment him nearly every night. He has done nothing to merit such abuse. He has done nothing, nothing but save me, even though I did not believe I needed to be saved. He. Does. Not. Deserve. This.

Silence meets the barrage of notes.

This is not Mendelssohn, not Mozart.

Nor is it the frantic and near impossible notes of Beethoven and Chopin.

This is Holmes. It is unique. It is powerful and it is _unstoppable._

The demons throw themselves into a frenzy at hearing it, pushing and pulling my doctor, forcing him to cry out. All in the belief that I will not enter his bedroom.

As always and once again they underestimate me. Stupid.

* * *

I push open the door and shocked silence reigns momentarily before the demons recover. With a yell, they throw the man on the bed into the full depths of his fears and crow their triumph as a long discord sounds from the violin as I study my doctor. He is fully within the demons' inescapable grip. His hair plastered to his forehead, making him look older than his thirty-seven years.

He looks vulnerable, alone and lost. Nothing like the brave soldier and captain who is my companion by day. I raise my bow once more and resume my tune. I play the bubbling notes of our giggles at crime scenes, the lazy notes of our take-out dinners and days spent watching crap TV.

The midnight chases that always seem to end with the two of us in the hallway giggling hysterically while Mrs. Hudson fusses over us. The bow sweeps across the strings unrestrained as I play our daily lives in an effort to soothe.

The melody changes as cold, high notes begin to sound from my violin and I inhale sharply when I realise just what I have done. Something I have never done before and something I had no intention of doing.

The cold notes are indicative of my nature before the brave, noble man in front of me limped into that lab at St Bart's and changed my life forever. They flow from me without consent as the violin and my body takes over and I play myself into the tune.

Next comes the excitement as I learnt of the fourth suicide, followed by the adrenaline of the blind banker. My body arches and the violin quietens as the worried notes of the pool sound.

At this, the demons throw themselves at my doctor's defences, but they are quieter now, not as frenzied. Heartened by this I regain control and continue. I play the relief of our survival, my chaste acceptance of his anger at my stupidity.

A second discord, this one on purpose, flows from my bow as The Woman is played into the tune. The notes tell of the confusion she awakened in me and my emotions towards her intellect. Feelings that I would not have been aware of before the doctor. I play our game, the constant circling, the sadness at the inconvenience of her feigned death.

The compassion I showed in her rescue, she was a competent adversary but could not hold my attention for long. The captain thought I loved her and so lied in an attempt to protect me. The violin arches in my grasp echoing my inward assertion, for he is wrong. I never loved The Woman.

* * *

The cold, spine-chilling, haunting notes of Dartmoor sound, a reminder of the time that I could not trust my senses. I play the shame at pushing him away when I needed a friend, then the confession that he, the brave and loyal captain is my only one. The demons are silent now, listening as the bow sweeps across the strings as I begin to reach my finale.

The bow scraps across the strings sounding out the evil, cunning and manipulative notes of the consulting criminal. They have no place in the music but the violin demands they be told. High, winding notes signify the game, before reaching the soul-crushing conclusion, resulting in either one death, or two.

The violin pulls away from me and sounds out the melancholy sadness of my leaving if it comes to pass. I pause in an attempt to stop what I know will happen, but the violin is as fickle as myself. It arches and I make a grab for it, trying to prevent it from removing the last barrier I have left. I fail.

Angel written, beautiful notes play. The soft, gentle loving sounds flow from the bow and with it the entire truth. I gasp and hear it echoed by the demons as I realise that they know all. Stupid. They throw my doctor into a fit I cannot stop. I try everything, discords, destruction, lullaby, lies, complete truth of my feelings for him. I resort to begging. The one thing I have never done. It does not work.

* * *

They continue, arch-aching their triumph over me, it is worse than normal, as due to my stupidity they know just how much each pain-filled cry cuts me. My melody becomes frantic as I play anything I can think of to stop the horrible cries the demons cause, but nothing works.

Not anymore. I work myself into a frenzy, sawing notes with murderous intent, but I cannot stop the demons, not now that they know that for once, they have the power. I must resort to my final line of defence. I reach the crescendo of notes; the demon's crying their victory throughout the captain's room.

I throw the violin aside, ignoring the jarring sound it creates, knowing that the doctor cannot hear it. I hate that I must resort to the one method that always surprises the fiends but that risks my discovery. In two short strides, I am beside the doctor's bed and in one swift movement; I pull the shaking man into my arms. I wrap myself around him, closer than normal, a six foot blanket.

The reaction is immediate.

With a final, terror filled cry, the demons disappear into the dark well in the captain's sub- consciousness and it angers me that I cannot annihilate them, not yet. They never wish to face me when I have physical contact with their prey. Prey that thankfully for once has slipped into REM sleep.

Some nights I have to hide myself in the shadows as the man in my arms wakes and drinks from the water on his bedside table, before giving in to troubled sleep. I look down at him, sandy hair streaked with grey at the temples. The new lines craved into the countenance of a soldier interspersed with a doctor's care. The vulnerability he rarely shows.

Slowly, so that he will not wake, I push back his plastered hair and then settle myself around him, his back against my chest. I wrap my arms around him bringing far closer than normal. This is dangerous but I no longer care. Leaving the doctor to his dreams is no longer an option. Once again, it seems, I have lost the battle, but that does not mean that I will lose the war.

I am Sherlock Holmes and the doctor is mine to protect and mine to care for.

It finishes, as it always does, with me wrapped around my doctor, my captain, my _**John**_ until morning breaks, protecting him by night, as he protects me by day. I am content to lie here in my suit curled around him, but yet, I yearn for more than this. How irrational, wanting the one thing I cannot have or even thought about having before he limped into my life.

For if he knew of this he would be mortified, embarrassed and more than likely leave. I cannot have that; he has become too integrated in my life. I curl myself tighter around him and feel him shift in my embrace settling comfortably against my chest. I lean my head against his and close my eyes in thought, not sleep, for I must be gone before he wakes.

This is enough. It has to be.

**AN; So, what did you think? Please review so I know how to be better. **


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